


Catch as Catch Can

by bees_stories



Series: The New Team Torchwood Adventures [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Case File, Grief, Sick!Ianto, Vampires, kidnap, relationships, sex slaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bees_stories/pseuds/bees_stories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Gray’s revenge, Torchwood Three has struggled to soldier on as Cardiff slowly rebuilds. When a strange case involving the death of vampires is brought to their attention, Jack realises that he can’t let the ghosts of the past hold him back any longer. </p><p>Beta and Britpicks by: elainasaunt, fide_et_spe, and lawsontl. Many thanks!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

***

Andy Davidson strode down the street behind the row of shuttered nightclubs. He was an hour into his shift, and already he could murder a coffee. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with rain damped air, and scowled.

"What is that smell?" He took a somewhat more shallow-mouthed breath and held his hand over his nose as he crept cautiously into the alley. Something was propped against the wall, covered with a ragged tarpaulin. Instinctively, he knew he wasn't going to like what he saw as he nudged the canvas away. "Christ!" 

He backed away as fast as he could. The body under the tarpaulin might once have been that of a pretty young girl, but no one would call her pretty anymore. He reached for the microphone on his shoulder and called it in.

***

"It's a nasty one," Dr O'Neal warned as Jack ducked under the cordon of crime scene tape. He handed Jack a mask and set of gloves. Temporary lights had been set up in the alleyway illuminating the awfulness of the damaged corpse.

"Ligature marks around the wrists and ankles." 

"What makes you think it's one of ours?" Jack frowned as he examined the crime scene. 

"What cinched it for me were these." O'Neal shone his torch at the corpse's mouth exposing its unusually elongated canines. "Those aren't human teeth." 

Jack's frown deepened. O'Neal was right. The body wasn't human, although it was of terrestrial origin. "Good call." He pulled his mobile from his greatcoat pocket and snapped a couple of photographs before clambering to his feet and offering his hand so that O'Neal could do the same. "Be quick about the autopsy. These corpses are fragile. I'll have Ianto send you the relevant files." 

"Is this a problem?" O'Neal looked worriedly over his shoulder. "Those blisters. They're not signs of a contagious disease, are they?"

Jack shook his head. "No. Not a contagion. Allergen. Your victim there was allergic to the sun." 

"Photosensitivity doesn't normally kill," O'Neal said softly, so as not to draw the attention of the other crime scene officers.

Jack shrugged. "It can if you're a vampire." Off O'Neal's nonplussed expression, Jack added, "Read the file. I'll look forward to your report." He started to walk away, paused and looked back. "There wasn't any ID on the body, was there?"

O'Neal shook his head. "No purse or wallet. No mobile or distinctive jewellery. At least none in visible places." 

"Goes to figure." Jack sighed. "Thanks, Doc. I'll be in touch." He turned away and rang Ianto, noticing as the call went through that Constable Davidson seemed eager for a word. Jack filled Ianto in on the file request for Dr O'Neal and headed through a throng of milling police officers.

***

Ianto sneezed and coughed into his handkerchief and took a moment to let the room stop spinning before he bent back to the form he was attempting to complete. The last lines typed, he sent the form to the printer and rose from his desk to make a cup of coffee.

His phone rang. "Yes, Jack?" Ianto set down the spoon he was about to use to dip coffee beans into the grinder. "The file on what? That's what I thought you said. Not a myth, then. Will you be here to meet with Dr Porter?" He covered the phone as he coughed again. 

_"Are you all right?"_

Jack hadn't said anything as Ianto had forced himself out of bed earlier, and now he sounded guilty.

"Fine. What shall I tell Dr Porter?" 

"I'll be there. See you soon."

Ianto's reply was lost in a fit of coughing. Jack severed the connection and turned his attention to PC Andy Davidson. The constable had been a reliable bird dog, but with Ianto sidelined for now and a potential new case that could stretch their limited resources, it was time to see if he was ready to move up in the world. "PC Davidson, a word?"

Davidson said something to another constable and then hurried forward. 

Jack slung his arm around Andy's neck. "We need to talk." He escorted Davidson into a grimy looking café. A slatternly waitress looked up uninterestedly as they slid into a booth, then returned her attention to the television where a B-list celebrity gesticulated animatedly whilst being interviewed by a pair of morning chat show hosts. 

"How'd you like to come work for me?" Jack asked. 

Andy sat back in the booth. He stared at Jack as if he didn't believe what he'd heard. "You're not having me on?" He glanced around the otherwise empty café as if he expected someone to appear and laugh. 

"Dead serious," Jack said. "I pay well, and the work's interesting. Of course, the hours can leave something to be desired, but no job is perfect." 

Andy still didn't look convinced, but he couldn't quite conceal the spark of interest that lit his eyes. "I'd finally get to know what really is going on around here? All the weird shit revealed?"

Jack nodded. "Clean out your locker and report to the Mermaid Quay Tourist Information Centre. If you're interested, that is." The waitress still hadn't budged from behind the counter. Jack considered the state of the table and decided, immortal or not, he didn't want to risk anything that might come from the kitchen, including the coffee. He got up and strode out into the bright sunshine of a new day.

***

Gwen dropped her purse next to her desk and sank wearily into her chair. A new day, and they were going to take on their first new hire since — She still couldn't quite think about that awful time, even if it had been months since the memorial service. Jack had decided to soldier on, and so Gwen decided she had to as well, though it meant long hours and little rest.

They'd taken on several individuals as sort of an auxiliary Torchwood. Dr O'Neal, the medical examiner, and Kathy Swanson — promoted to superintendent in the wake of the killings at the Cardiff nick — had both been deputised and had signed the Official Secrets Act. The team had even taken on a few select constables and trained them in the art of weevil suppression.

Ianto called them Field Agents in Training and said they were gaining experience against a day when Torchwood came out of their quasi-hibernation. Gwen just called them 'FiTs', which is what they gave her when they jumped at shadows. 

Myfanwy called out and Gwen gazed up to follow the looping progression of the living fossil as she circled the upper tier of the Hub. It was oddly soothing to watch and she felt some of her tension fade. 

There was an explosion of coughing from the kitchenette. Gwen turned to see Ianto, cradling several files and heading her way. 

"Suspicious cases for review." Ianto handed over the files, being careful not to touch her hands. 

"Thanks." Gwen saw that each file had been labelled neatly with the event location and type. It was up to her to determine if there was any reason for trips out of Cardiff now that their resources were spread so thin. "Are you sure you should be here, Ianto? You don't sound well." 

He shrugged. "Didn't want to miss Dr Porter's first day." He glanced at his watch. "If you'll excuse me, she's due any minute."

***

Felicity Porter ran a hand through her closely cropped blonde hair, ruffling it not at all, and straightened her spine. Ten years as a soldier, including time spent in combat conditions, still hadn't cured her of first day nerves. New city. New posting. New life. She took a deep breath of brackish air and let it out slowly before ignoring the 'Closed for Renovation' sign and opening the door to the Mermaid Quay Tourist Information Centre.

A youngish man in a dark suit stood behind the counter. He made Felicity feel distinctly underdressed despite her freshly pressed flat-front black chinos, crisp blouse under a wool blazer, and sensible shoes. 

He smiled at her and she frowned back. His eyes were red and his nose was swollen and blotchy. Even in the poor light of the little office, she could tell his colour was off and he didn't look at all well. 

"Dr Porter?" His voice betrayed congested nasal passages and a probable sore throat. "Forgive me if I don't shake your hand," he said when Felicity nodded. "I'm Ianto Jones. Welcome to Torchwood." He pressed a button that caused a previously unnoticed door to open, then stepped around the counter to lock up. "If you'll follow me?" He gestured towards the passageway. 

Felicity nodded and let him lead.

***

Jack pulled into the tow zone in front of the Cardiff police station and cut the Range Rover's engine. He smiled over his takeaway coffee as a passing constable gave him a sidelong glower but made no comment. A minute later PC Andy Davidson came out of the nick dressed in civilian clothing. He had an equipment bag slung over his shoulder and a nervous expression on his face.

Jack rolled down the passenger side window and leaned into the empty seat. "Want a lift?"

He knew he should let Andy come to him, just like he knew he should already be back at the Hub greeting Felicity Porter. But Jack figured he'd save a little time and boredom and do his Commanding Officer orientation speech once he had them both safely in hand. 

Andy hesitated, then nodded and got in. "Thanks." He let Jack pull out of the illegal parking area first and then asked, "How'd you know?"

Jack shrugged and handed over a paper sack of doughnuts. "You seem like the curious type, when you give yourself permission. I figured this would be one of those times. So go ahead, Andy. It is all right if I call you Andy, isn't it?"

Andy shrugged. "I suppose so. It is my name." He took a jam doughnut out of the bag and took a careful bite.

Cute. He could rival Ianto in the deadpan department. "What's your number one question about Torchwood?"

Andy stared at the passing traffic for a second. "Your reputation is: if it's weird, it's Torchwood. So what is it about Cardiff that draws enough weird happenings to it that it needs its own Special Branch?"

Jack pursed his lips, impressed. "That's an excellent question. The answer is there's this Rift in time and space." 

Andy's entire body turned against the restraint of the safety belt. "A what?" 

Jack braked to a halt as the traffic light cycled from amber to red. He used the stop to illustrate by bringing his fingertips together in a pair of O's and drawing them apart to form an imaginary tube. "Think of the Rift as a conduit between two points — except one of those points moves around." He waved his upper hand whilst keeping the lower stationary. "Things and people are sucked through that tube and end up here in Cardiff."

Andy stared at Jack. He blinked slowly. "Wait a minute. You mean that Roman soldier was a real Roman soldier and not some deluded bloke?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah. And the weevils — they're not really a lab experiment that escaped, at least not from anywhere around here. And sometimes, things and people are sucked into the tube from this side. People like Jonah Bevan."

Andy's expression hardened into scepticism. "Jonah Bevan was sucked into space? You're barmy."

Jack, unsurprised by Andy's reaction, shrugged and returned his attention to the morning commuter traffic. "It's true. Jonah was picked up by the Rift and returned again."

"But we were told he died in a motoring accident up north!" He looked pained. "I was there when they told Nikki. She was devastated."

Jack cut around several slower moving cars and gave Andy a somewhat guilty look. "A cover story we generated to get you off the case." 

Andy brushed his hand across his eyes, then looked out the window as if he were seeing Cardiff for the first time. "Shit. So what you're saying is that Torchwood deals in aliens?"

Jack grinned. He knew Andy was going to work out fine, despite Gwen's reservations. "Pretty much. Aliens and time-displaced people and artefacts. The aliens we police, and the others we handle on a case by case basis." 

"Aliens," Andy said softly. "So you really are Mulder. Damn." He sank against the seat back and into silence. 

Jack spared Andy a glance, considering a retort, but decided to leave him alone. No doubt there were a hundred questions jostling around in his brain and he, or Gwen, or Ianto, would face the brunt of them in due time. He took the turning that led to the parking garage and checked his watch. He wasn't that late. No doubt Gwen would be chatting with Felicity over coffee and paperwork and they wouldn't notice his tardiness. 

"Come on, Andy. It's time to show you where the action is."

***

"And you say you fell into the bay how many days ago?"

Ianto handed the thermometer back to Dr Porter. It had been Tuesday — no, Wednesday. "Seven." 

She looked at the readout but didn't comment. "Achy all over? Head hurts?" 

Ianto nodded as she fitted a stethoscope against her ears and warmed the headpiece against one gloved palm. With a sigh, he loosened his tie and opened his shirt. 

"It's nothing serious, is it?" Gwen asked as she peered down from the catwalk.

"That's what I'd like to know." Jack strode forward, leaving Andy gawping in his wake. "Hey, Tiger. What’s going on?"

Ianto glared at Jack. "Work rules!" he said sternly, but the slight upturn of his lips undercut the severity of the admonishment.

"Back to that, are we?" Jack sounded somewhat disappointed. He turned his attention to their new medic. "Felicity, good to see you again. Question still stands. What’s going on?"

"Captain Harkness." There was an implied salute in her crisp enunciation, but she stalled further conversation by holding up her hand. She placed the head of the stethoscope against Ianto's chest, listened, moved it to a new spot and listened again. "Cough." She repeated the operation as Ianto complied, steadying his shoulder as a single bark turned into a series of hacking exhalations. Felicity removed her stethoscope and tucked it into the pocket of her borrowed lab coat, thumped Ianto on the back, and handed him a wad of tissues. "It would appear Ianto has pneumonia." 

"I told you it wasn't just the flu," Jack said in a scolding tone to Ianto before turning his attention back to the doctor. "So what are you going to do about it?"

Felicity made notes on a pad. "Do you keep antibiotics on hand?" 

"Drugs lockup," Ianto said as he buttoned his shirt and straightened his tie. "I can show you." 

Felicity gave him a hard look and then nodded. "All right, but then you need to stand down and get some rest. Can someone drive you home?" 

Ianto allowed Felicity to help him off the exam table. "I have a converted office on the next level." 

"Eh hem." 

Gwen's eyes went wide as she noticed her former colleague at last. "Andy! What are you doing here?"

"We've got a new case and I've made Andy a field agent so he can help out." Jack's voice was distracted as he watched Felicity escort Ianto out of the main medical bay. 

"What sort of new case?" Gwen asked warily. 

"Dead vampire." 

Jack barely noticed as both Gwen and Andy said, "Get out!" nearly simultaneously.

"Gwen, get Andy a desk and show him where he can put his stuff. Conference room in twenty."

And then Jack was on the move again, heading for the tunnel that would take him to the archivist's office ahead of Ianto and Felicity.

***

"First of all," Jack said a short time later, "Andy, Felicity, welcome to Torchwood. There's a lot of paperwork you need to sign — disclosures, confidentiality agreements, notifications for your next of kin, and so forth — before I'm supposed to let you out on the street. Felicity, here's your package. Read it. Sign it. Get it back to me by the end of the day." Jack slid a folder across the table to her. "Andy, until Ianto gets a chance to put yours together, don't get killed."

Andy swallowed nervously, not sure if Jack was kidding. He shot Gwen a questioning look. She nodded as if to say Jack was serious. "Right," Andy drawled. 

"Next." Jack picked up a carton from under the table. "Weapons and communications. We carry 24/7. Never go anywhere without your gun and your mobile. Felicity, you're already cleared to carry, but you need to range test for the files. Andy, have you had any training?" 

He nodded. "I took the armed response course." 

"Andy!" Gwen exclaimed. "You never said." 

He raked his eyes across Gwen's face and said sullenly, "Didn't think you would care," before returning his attention to Jack. "I scored in the top 5% of my class." 

Jack gave him a brusque nod of approval and pushed the carton towards Felicity. "You can impress me after the briefing."

Felicity removed a mobile phone in its factory packaging, a lockbox with a key taped to the handle, and a leather holster, and stacked them neatly on the table in front of her. She slid the carton over to Andy, who did the same. He opened the lockbox and extracted the pistol to examine it more closely.

"Sweet!" he said as he sighted down the barrel.

"Toys later," Jack said sternly. "We have a new case. Vampire. How old is hard to say. Their blood has anti-ageing factors the cosmetics industry would kill for. Signs she was held hostage. Death probably from sun poisoning. Although that hasn't been confirmed by autopsy yet." 

"Sorry, did you say vampire?" Felicity looked up from her stack of paperwork and set the pen down. 

"Bram Stoker and popular culture have a lot to answer for," Jack said. "Vampires are a genetic variant of Homo sapiens. Only way back in the day they picked up an extraterrestrial hitchhiker that causes severe anaemia and an aversion to sunlight. But it's wasn't all bad news. As a result of the genetic remodelling, the hosts get their psychic abilities, if they have any, boosted. They become faster and stronger. And, if they avoid fire and the sun, and getting stuck in a vital organ, they can live for a very long time."

"So what's the blood-sucking in the myths about? Is that iron-seeking?" Felicity asked as she jotted notes.

Jack nodded. "It's partly that, if they get desperate enough. Direct transfer of their genetic material through a bite is the only way vampires can procreate." He eyed them all in turn. "It's a big deal and not something they're casual about, so get any preconceived ideas out of your heads. For the most part, they're not bad guys." 

"So, not undead or demon-possessed, then." Andy sat back against his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "Boy, this is going to take some getting used to." 

"When you get a chance you can go through the alien database," Gwen said. "There's all sorts in there you'd never guess." 

Jack cleared his throat theatrically and shot Gwen a pointed look before resuming the briefing. "Our girl was found this morning in an alleyway by PC Davidson. An autopsy by our favourite pathologist, Dr O'Neal, is under way." Jack paused and looked across the table. "Felicity, normally I'd have you do this in house, but Dr O'Neal was there on the scene and vampire cadavers tend to disintegrate within hours of death. Gwen, I want you to take Felicity over to the medical examiner’s office and introduce her to O'Neal. Once we get his findings we can determine how we need to proceed." 

"What are you going to do, Jack?" Gwen asked. 

"I'm going to poke around the investigation and see if the cops missed anything interesting, and I'm going to make sure Andy won't shoot himself in the foot with his shiny new gun. Any questions?" He looked around the table. "Let's get to work."

***

Ianto knew he was supposed to be resting. He was in bed — dressed in a tracksuit since his pyjamas were in the laundry. Jack had made him a flask of tea and it rested at his elbow. His hip was sore from the antibiotics jab Dr Porter had administered. He was tired and aching and now that he was officially offline, there was no good reason for him to do anything but sleep or possibly watch videos, but his brain didn't want to shut down.

Jack had dragged PC Andy back from the early morning crime scene. It wasn't that he disagreed with Jack about recruiting Andy — he'd advocated the move for months. But there were procedures to follow, all of which had been circumvented by Jack in his usual cavalier style. Wearily, Ianto flipped the blankets back and shivered as he got out of bed. He pulled on his dressing gown and tried to settle at his desk. 

A wave of chills rolled over him. Jack had turned up the electric fireplace before he left, but Ianto still couldn't get warm. He booted his computer and, with an economy of keystrokes, sent the appropriate paperwork to Jack's printer, then emailed Jack to let him know it was waiting. Once he was finished with that, Ianto set up a user account for Andy on the mainframe and sent Jack that information, too.

He pulled Andy's police personnel file, located his address, and used the information to find his telephone and Internet providers. He put a trap on Andy's accounts just as he already had on Dr Porter's. Feeling like he'd accomplished as much as he could given his current condition, Ianto logged off and went back to bed.

***

"Not bad, Hot Shot." Jack recalled the target to examine the placement of the holes riddling the paper. Andy ejected the spent magazine and replaced it with a fresh one. "Of course it's a lot different out in the field when the hostiles shoot back, but for now, I'm convinced."

"Thanks, boss. It's okay if I call you 'boss', isn't it?" Andy asked uncertainly.

Jack signed and dated the corner of the target then offered his pen to Andy. "Boss, Captain, you can even call me Jack, if you're feeling friendly." 

"I think I'll stick to boss if it's all the same." Andy holstered his gun and signed his name. He yanked the pistol out of the holster, sighted down the alley of the range and holstered again. "That's going to take getting used to." 

Jack shrugged as he put the target away. "You'd be surprised at what becomes habit. Now, suppose we go take a look and see what the preliminary investigation has turned up. Come on, we'll use your desk." 

Andy trailed behind Jack as they entered the main body of the Hub. Jack straddled the chair of Owen's old workstation and tapped the keyboard a couple of times to bring it out of hibernation. When he entered his user I.D. a message box opened. He read it and scowled, but there was affection in his expression too. "Ianto," he said softly. He typed a couple of short sentences, hit the Return key, and continued on as if nothing had happened.

"Right. We started with one image. I dumped that into our facial recognition software. That program runs through all the databases — police files, anywhere a name is linked to a photograph, really. We're tied into the CCTV network. So every time a camera gets an image with a ninety percent or better chance of being a match, it can follow the trail backwards." He propped his elbow on the chair back and glanced at Andy. "It's not 100%, but it's a useful tool."

"We do use this sort of thing in the police, you know," Andy said. 

"Yeah." Jack watched images flicker by. "But our computers are better and we have fewer restrictions on how we can dig for information. No civil rights group is going to hold our feet to the fire for matching someone's CCTV image to their MySpace page. Your lot, at least your former lot, can't get away with that." 

"You're right enough about that." Andy watched as in the left hand corner of the screen, a number marking the percent possibility of a successful match dropped steadily. Sophisticated technology or not, it looked like they were going to have to find some other way to identify their dead vampire.

***

Gwen waved her identification card at the security guard, who frowned but motioned them through. She could hear Felicity Porter's sensible heels clumping slowly a couple of paces behind her. Gwen glanced over her shoulder to confirm her impression. It seemed Felicity was memorizing the layout of the medical examiner's office. It made a reasonable degree of sense. The hospital layout was far from straightforward, and the doctor would be responsible for making the journey by herself as soon as Jack cut her loose.

"O'Neal's office is just ahead." Gwen gestured to the a door a little further up the corridor. "Those are autopsy theatres along here." 

Felicity nodded, but didn't reply. She wasn't much for chit-chat, Gwen decided. But maybe it was first day nerves and she would warm up a bit once she settled in. 

They arrived at O'Neal's door. Gwen knocked and pushed the door open without waiting for a reply. Dr O'Neal was at his desk typing, using the hunt and peck technique but making decent progress. He looked up and waved them in. "I'll just be a minute." He keyed a few more strokes and pages began to roll out of the printer. "Don't worry, that's not yours." He peered over his reading glasses and looked Felicity up and down. "Don't think I've seen you around here before." 

Felicity stepped forward and stuck out her hand. "Dr Felicity Porter." 

"Dr Porter is our new team medic," Gwen supplied. "Sean, Dr O'Neal, has been very helpful pointing out cases of interest." 

"I look forward to working with you," Felicity said. "So tell me, Dr O'Neal, have you anything for us on the dead ... girl?" 

Dr Porter raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitched upward at his colleague's reticence, but he nodded. He pulled a tiny plastic case containing a memory chip out of his desk drawer and handed it over. "Get the door, will you, Gwen?"

The heavy door closed with a clunk. "Now, to business. The cause of death wasn't the sun, although there were high levels of histamines in her blood. She'd been stabbed. Small puncture wound through the right kidney. Internal bleeding and that was that. Judging by the file you sent over, if her system hadn't been so overwhelmed, she might have recovered eventually. She found her way into that alley, covered herself against the sun with the tarpaulin, and died." 

Gwen held out her hand and Felicity gave her the microSD RAM card. She stuck it into her mobile and forwarded the information to the Hub's mainframe. "Time of death?"

"Not long before she was found. Less than an hour, perhaps?" He scratched his nose, then continued. "Her body was cooling but not cold. And there was no sign of deterioration. If you were to look at her now, you'd think she'd been dead for days." He took off his glasses and set them on the desk. "Speaking of which, what shall I do with the remains?"

"We'll take them off your hands," Felicity said promptly, exchanging a look with Gwen. "I realise there probably isn't much left to see, but I'd still like to examine them myself." 

Dr O'Neal's eyes crinkled in amusement. "First case?" 

Felicity nodded. She gave her colleague an answering hint of a smile. "Worse than that. First day. I'd like to start it off running." 

"Piece of advice?" Dr O'Neal opened his desk drawer and handed over a rather battered rabbit's foot on a chain. "You might want to exchange those nice office shoes for a pair of trainers. You'll need them soon enough." He winked and rose. "Now, if you'll excuse me, ladies, the dead don't actually wait for anybody." 

Gwen watched as Felicity curled a neatly manicured hand around the good luck charm for a moment before tucking it away in her right hip pocket.

***

Andy leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling far above his head. His hand hurt. It seemed like he'd signed an entire ream of paper, certainly more than when he'd joined the police. Captain Harkness had taken his photograph, his fingerprints, a retinal scan, and, strangest of all, a blood sample. The last had hurt and he wondered why his new boss hadn't waited for the doctor.

The computer was still churning away, images flickering. It was interesting enough, he supposed, but he wondered why they were bothering. According to everything he'd ever known, vampires were evil creatures that sucked the blood of the living when they weren't busy seducing the young into their wicked ways.

But the Captain said that was a bad rap. Andy wondered if vampires ran any sort of a defence league. He wondered, as photo after photo from the social networking pages flicked by, if vampires even used social networking sites. And then he shrugged. "Why wouldn't they? Everyone is on the Internet now." 

Rather cautiously, he minimized the search program and launched an Internet browser. His hands paused over the keyboard. He had no idea what search terms to use. He tried 'good + vampire' and found discussions about good vampire films and good vampires in popular culture. Andy scanned several pages and decided the query was a waste of time.

He wondered if vampires actually called themselves something else amongst themselves, but a careful reading of the database entry didn't reveal much more than what they'd discussed at the briefing. The vampires were old, and for the most part they lived literally in the shadows of the sun-loving human world. 

The computer pinged. Andy looked down at the tab for the minimised CCTV scan and frowned. He closed the browser and let the search window fill the screen. There was their girl. She was sitting in a booth at what appeared to be a dance club. A dark scarf, not part of crime scene ensemble, was wrapped around her head and shoulders. Her expression was drawn, but there was no mistaking the heart-shaped face or the thinly plucked eyebrows.

"Boss! I've got something!" Andy called before he belatedly remembered Jack's instruction to use the comm system. There was a sudden motion up above and a scream that sounded like it belonged in a film. Andy looked up and his mouth fell open as a pterodactyl swooped down from the upper gallery. 

"Shit!" He dropped under the desk and reached for his pistol. He didn't have a great line of sight from where he was hiding and that gave him a moment to think. The creature went back to its aerie and Andy crawled out from under the desk. 

"Good call," Jack said. He offered Andy a hand up. "I'd have been none too pleased if you put a hole in my watchdog." 

"You've got a bloody dinosaur as a watchdog?" Andy couldn't keep the squeak out of his voice. He took a deep breath and shook his head. "Why am I not surprised?" 

"She's actually a sweetheart, once she gets to know you." Jack smiled fondly for a moment as if his thoughts were elsewhere, then refocused his attention on Andy. "Did I hear you say you'd found something?"

Andy nodded as the proximity alarm sounded. The cog door rolled back. Gwen and Felicity entered. Felicity was pushing a trolley on which lay a body bag. 

"Ladies, great timing," Jack announced. "It seems we might have a break in the case." 

"What have you found, Andy?" Gwen hustled forward, the corpse on the trolley forgotten as she peered at the image on the monitor. She pulled the keyboard to the side and nudged Andy out of her way as she transferred the information to her own workstation. 

"Oi! I was doing fine on my own, thank you very much." 

"Sorry, Andy," Gwen replied in a rather distracted tone. 

"Still a bloody terrier, I see," Andy grumbled as he went to look over her shoulder.

"Did I mention that Andy used to be Gwen's partner back when she was a constable?" Jack said as he went to see what Felicity was getting up to.

She'd transferred the body bag to the exam table and had already fished a pair of exam gloves out of box on the counter. She slid a disposable mask over her nose and mouth and unzipped the bag.

What was left wasn't pretty. Jack was forced to look away and marshal his gag reflex before gazing down on the corpse. 

"Extraordinary," Felicity said softly. She looked around the medical bay. "Is there a camera?" 

Jack nodded and retrieved it from a rucksack under the counter. "Exam kit. Pretty much everything you need is there. We keep a duplicate kit in the car." 

"Thanks." Felicity snapped a series of photographs. "It's as if weeks have passed in minutes. Tissue gone. Organs. I wonder if the autopsy had any effect on the process?" she murmured. 

"I don't think so. It's just the way they are," Jack said. 

Gwen called out triumphantly. "She met someone. Bloke. Quite the charmer — look at the way he’s trying it on. Snuggling against her like that." 

By the time Jack reached Gwen's workstation a second image had joined their victim on the screen. "Good work, team. Let's see if he can give us a name."

To be continued ... 


	2. Chapter 2

***

Ianto heard someone moving around the room. He opened his eyes and rolled over painfully. Jack was standing there looking down on him. There were worry lines etched around his eyes. Ianto extended his hand. "Hey."

"Hey, yourself," Jack replied as he clasped Ianto's hand and sat down on the edge of the bed. "How are you feeling?" 

Sitting upright wasn't easy, but Ianto managed and then doubled over as an attack of coughing overtook him. Jack handed him the dregs of the tea and swallowing it down helped a little.

"Let me make you a fresh one." Jack started to get up, but Ianto held him in place. 

"In a minute. How's it going upstairs?" 

Jack shrugged. "The new kids seem to be settling in pretty well. Myfanwy scared Andy. He didn't freak. Well, maybe a little. But more importantly, he took the time to assess the situation before he reacted. He's got good instincts. Felicity has barely blinked considering her first DB is a mythological creature from popular culture. I'd say they're both going to work out fine. "

"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself as well as me." Ianto regarded Jack curiously. "What aren't you saying?" 

Jack sighed. "It's hard. Letting new people in. I know we need them. And I know I've put off restaffing for far too long, but — " He studied Ianto's face for a moment, weighing a decision. "Can I tell you a story?"

Ianto nodded. 

"Back a long time ago when I was a very young man and off soldiering, I enlisted with a company of other green recruits. We became fast friends during training, and vowed we'd stick up for each other, no matter what. Then we were sent into battle, and one by one, my friends died.

"Each death was a little harder than the one before it, but it was war and that's what happens. They sent in new greenies to replace the casualties. At first, we made them welcome, tried to make them part of the company. But they died, too. After a while, we quit talking to the new guys. We clung to each other, but we left those replacements strictly alone."

"You feel like that now?" Ianto asked. 

Jack nodded. "By the time you and Gwen showed up, I'd pretty much closed myself off again. I'd lost too many people. Too many good, bright, willing agents under my command. It hurt to let anyone get too close, so I kept everyone at arm's length." He looked at Ianto ruefully. "You managed to get under my defences anyway. I let myself love again. You, Gwen, Toshiko and Owen, I loved all of you. And then Owen and Toshiko died. I won't let go of you or Gwen. Not easily. But I don't know that I can let anyone else in again." 

"Jack," Ianto said softly. He fell into a racking fit of coughing. Jack held and supported him through it before fetching a bottle of water. 

"Here, drink this." 

The water helped and Ianto finally caught his breath. "I can't speak for the future, but right now, you're not alone. Don't cut yourself off because of what might happen, please?" 

"Just ... don't leave me any time soon. Promise?" 

It was a risky thing to say, but Ianto had no plans to shuffle off the mortal coil, despite his bout of pneumonia. "I promise." He extended his arms and gathered Jack in. They stayed that way for a long moment. "Now go upstairs. You've got an investigation to crack."

"What about your tea?" Jack asked.

Ianto considered. Now that he'd given in to illness, he had all the strength of a newborn, and he didn't really want to be alone. He decided to give them both ten more minutes of comfort and then Jack would have to assume the mantle of command once more. "Tea would be nice," he conceded, before letting Jack escort him down the hallway to the loo.

***

Dr O'Neal zipped the protective coveralls up over his chest and slid a disposable mask over his ears. Two call outs in one day and from the scuttlebutt he'd heard as soon as he arrived on the crime scene, the homicide squad wouldn't retain control of either one. 

"Where's the body?" It was a ritual question. It was answered with a weary shrug by the detective sergeant in charge of controlling the scene. The body was where the crowd of people — both plain clothed and uniform — massed, doing an elaborate dance as they attempted to accomplish their tasks without getting in each other's way. 

"It's pretty ripe, Doc," Barley the senior evidence technician commented as he made way for O'Neal. 

The corpse was situated in another murky alleyway. What was left appeared to be male. It was in an advanced state of decay. Barley was right. It stank. Putrefaction was well under way. 

A police photographer had already documented the scene, but O'Neal took a few snaps of his own, concentrating on the enlarged canines and the ligature marks. Someone had been considerably rougher with this victim than the one they'd found earlier. It was obvious at a glance that one of the wrists and several of the fingers were broken. 

"Let's get it bagged," O'Neal said to the waiting technicians. "There's not a lot I can do here." He peeled off his gloves but left the mask in place until he'd cleared the crime scene tape. He texted the photographs and a brief report to Captain Harkness before heading back to his office to prepare for the autopsy.

***

"Once is unusual," Jack said to his new recruits as he pulled out of the parking garage. "Twice is annoying." 

"Twice is the beginning of a pattern." Andy propped his forearms against Felicity's headrest. "Do aliens do serial killings?"

"Sometime let me tell you about a little gal named Mary," Jack replied as he ran a traffic signal. "Aliens do everything humans do. But as I said this morning, strictly speaking, vampires aren't aliens. They've been around long enough to be considered natives." 

"Right. So you said." Andy didn't sound entirely convinced.

As he drove through a city still under reconstruction, Jack pointed out likely hot spots for weevil activity, areas known to be problematic for communication, and a few not strictly legal short cuts that made Andy harrumph. 

"And the civilian population really has no idea all of this is going on?" Felicity asked as they pulled around back of the hospital near the entry to the medical examiner's office. 

"We do our best to keep them out of it." Jack cut the engine. "And when we can't, there's retcon." 

"What's that, then?" Andy released the latch of his seat belt and leaned forward again. 

"Retcon is a field agent's best friend." Jack extracted a pill vial and a small aerosol canister from his greatcoat pocket and tapped them together. "I'd give you a demonstration, but you wouldn't remember it later." 

"A memory suppressant in multiple delivery systems? May I?" Felicity reached for the vial and rattled the tablets against the side. 

"Partially and yes." Jack reclaimed the pill vial and dropped it, and the spray, back into his pocket. "It makes the memory malleable, letting us replace a problematic event with something much more easy to swallow. I'll get you the specs later. Right now, let's go take a look at this body while there's still something left to look at."

***

Gwen stared at the computer monitor watching images flicker by and wished she could make it process faster. But she was no technical whiz like Toshiko, and she had no way of making the machine bend to her will. 

If it were hours later, she would be on the street interviewing club goers to see if they recognised the girl or her companion. Until then, she was stuck in the Hub on monitoring duty. 

She pushed back from the workstation and paced restlessly. It wasn't just the case that made her agitated. It was the sudden changes Jack had inflicted by bringing newcomers into the Hub. She hadn't always felt so territorial, at least she didn't think so. The Hub was just a place. But it had become her place. Hers and Jack's and Ianto's, and letting outsiders in felt wrong. Even if the outsider was someone like Andy. 

Andy. How could they work together again after everything that had gone on between them? Andy hadn't quite behaved the same towards her after the incident with the Bevan family. Gwen had been forced to lie rather shamelessly about everything, including why she had gone to Flat Holm Island, and Andy had known she was lying. Since then, he'd been polite, but the underlying friendship was gone. Now he knew the secret of Torchwood, would he forgive her at last? Or would he hold a grudge because she had blackballed his recruitment? 

Gwen sighed and impatiently pushed her hair away from her face. She really should get it cut or take more care with pins, or something, because on days like this, she didn't need the aggravation. 

Maybe she could cut it short like their new doctor. Felicity probably didn't have to do more than towel her hair briskly and she'd be ready to face the day. As an army medic serving in a war zone, she probably hadn't had time to worry about hair and make-up. Gwen wondered what they'd find to bond over. The dead vampire hadn't been a topic of hot conversation. 

For something to do, Gwen pulled up Felicity's personnel file. She was already familiar with the CV: University at Cardiff. Medical school in Edinburgh. Then straight into the Army. Gwen scrolled down through the list of academic papers and other achievements to the area set aside for interests. Felicity had listed palaeobiology, Formula One racing, and pre-1960's film. Oh well, Gwen thought with a sigh, people did put things like that down to make themselves more exotic. Perhaps she had a secret passion for bowling or talent shows on telly. 

Gwen closed the file and switched over to the internal CCTV. The cells were currently empty of weevils or other prisoners. Janet had left with the rest after Gray's appearance. Gwen found that, in an odd way, she missed her. In the archivist's office, Ianto lay in bed. He had a book propped on his chest, but he'd fallen into a restless sleep. 

A nap seemed like an excellent idea. If they were meant to hunt vampires, it would be a long, sleepless evening. Gwen fitted her earpiece in place in case Jack should call, then went to the ready room. 

They hadn't used it much whilst Owen and Toshiko were still alive. Owen had insisted the space was haunted and it gave him the creeps. Toshiko had set up various meters and other apparatus to prove him wrong, but Owen refused to be dissuaded. When Gwen had asked Jack if there was anything to Owen's fears, he had laughed and said the entire Hub was full of ghosts, if you only knew how to listen for them. 

The room had a neglected air about it that persisted even if the conversation was bright or music loud. Gwen had found she couldn't sleep there, no matter how tired she was, and so for a time she'd given up on it too, curling up on the community sofa or pillowing her head with her hands on her desk. But when their numbers had diminished and it became necessary for Gwen to sleep at the Hub more and more often, she decided she needed a refuge of her own. Jack had his bunker. Ianto had the archivist's office, and the ready room had the benefit of being much closer than the barracks. 

Gwen had decided she would reclaim the ready room from Owen's ghosts. She painted the stark white walls above the tiles a warm butter colour, added a few plants and a comfortable sofa, and made Jack buy new mattresses for the cast iron bedsteads. 

Now that others would be sharing the space, she supposed they should get some sort of dividers like they used in offices, so that Felicity and Andy could have their own spaces, too. It would make them feel welcome. Jack wanted them there. So, for his sake, she would put aside her reservations.

Gwen felt resolute and a little bit better about the newcomers as she stretched out onto the bed and pulled a blanket up under her chin.

***

"Oh, that is disgusting." Andy took a big step backward, pressing against the glass of the autopsy theatre, and held his hand over his face. "He doesn’t look much like that photo anymore."

"Normally, I'd chide you about paying respect to the dead," Dr O'Neal said, "but you're not half wrong." He offered a pot of eucalyptus ointment to his guests to help deaden their sense of smell. "From what you've told me, this man's been dead for less than twelve hours. If I hadn't known that, I'd have put it at several weeks, and not under ideal conditions. I've seen nicer looking corpses come out of the bay." 

Dr Porter accepted the jar from Andy and dabbed eucalyptus rub under her nose. She pulled a face mask into position before bending over the corpse. "The skin that's left isn't damaged the way the first victim was. He died without sun exposure." 

"Tortured to death." Dr O'Neal pointed at several X-rays displayed on the light board behind them. "Fingers broken. Wrist broken. Knee caps. I'd say they used a sledge for that bit. There's a metal fragment and a damaged spinal process in the neck here." He pointed at the chest cavity. "It looks like someone used an ice pick to administer the coup de grace." 

"Nice people." Jack stared at the ruined face of the still unidentified male vampire. "Thoughts?"

"I know you said that real" — Andy lowered his voice to a whisper — "vampires aren't much like in the films, but you haven't said what they _are_ like. The file talked about their sun allergies and the slow ageing, but it didn't mention much about their customs or habits." 

Jack frowned. "Why would that matter?" 

"As a copper, I have to know the people I'm policing." Andy grew more animated as he warmed to his topic. "Who to talk to if there's trouble. Who to talk to if there's going to be trouble so maybe the situation can be defused. How do vampires organise themselves? Is there a head fellow we need to have a word with? There's just not much for us to work with as it stands." 

During Andy's short lecture the two doctors had kept their heads bent over the corpse looking for anything that might help identify the victim. The both straightened and shook their heads. "You may as well bag him for transport, O'Neal," Dr Porter said. 

"The vampires I knew travelled in small groups," Jack said. "The members might change from time to time, but they tend to be clannish and stick together. Vampire justice is swift and hard. It’s dispensed by an elite clan of sworn enforcers. I used to know a guy once who might be helpful. I'm trying to track him down."

"Why haven't we heard anything about them before?" Andy's glance flickered from the corpse to the light board and finally to Jack's face. "Like the weevils. Even if we didn't know what they were, there were rumours. There's been no rumours about vampires in Cardiff. Unless you count those weird Goth kids that wear black and hang around the metal clubs."

"It's been a long time since there's been a sizeable vampire presence in Cardiff," Jack replied. "But with the destruction from the bombing, I suppose that could have brought a few sightseers. One thing literature did get right, they thrive on chaos. I suppose it's the boredom of a too long life that does it. Anything new or novel tends to catch their attention." 

"What if the boy was protecting the girl? Or trying to protect her?" Andy said thoughtfully. "She got away, and he was the one most likely to know where she went? Or, Did the girl know something? Was she someone special?" Andy speculated further. "Or was she no one at all? Just a bit of sport for some rough types?"

Jack shook his head. "Your average yob wouldn't stand a chance against a vampire unless they caught her out in daylight." 

"Hang on, what's this?" Porter turned her head towards O'Neal. "Magnifier?"

"What have you got?" He gave her a hand lens and went to the head of the autopsy table. 

"There's an odd, dark patch, sort of raised, just there on the left shoulder. I found something similar on the other body. It could be a tattoo or a brand." Dr Porter moved the lens back and forth several times. "I can't make out the shape. There's too much decay." 

"We can do a reconstruction at the Hub." Jack handed over his phone. "Here, get some photos. Just in case he falls apart before we get back." 

"Right." Dr Porter took several snaps, handed the phone back to Jack, and used O'Neal's more sophisticated laboratory camera to take several more. "I think that's all we can accomplish here." 

The two doctors carefully slid what was left of the corpse into the body bag and onto a trolley. Dr O'Neal walked them out to the service bay and watched as they pulled away.

***

There was a knock on the door frame. Ianto looked up. He'd abandoned the book in favour of Radio 4. He hadn't been paying close attention, but the short play about a young deviant discovering the work of a neolithic cave painter featured a Welsh voice actor and made him feel a little less lonely. 

Jack stood in the doorway carefully cradling a carrier bag. He looked considerably more upbeat than he had earlier. Ianto took that as a sign the case was progressing. "We picked up Thai on the way back from O'Neal's office. I got you soup." 

"Thanks." 

"Spoon or chopsticks?" Jack asked as he settled on the edge of the bed and opened the container.

Ianto peered at the soup and saw it was more solids than broth. "Chopsticks." 

"Don't eat that yet, I want to check you over again," Dr Porter said from the doorway. 

"Oh, yeah," Jack said with a half smile. "I nearly forgot."

Ianto sighed and handed the soup back to Jack, who got up off the bed to make room for their medic to work.

"Don't go too far, Captain," she said, taking his place on the edge of the bed. "I want you to watch what I'm doing so you can help him later." She settled her stethoscope in place while Ianto pulled off his sweatshirt. "Cough." 

Ianto raised an eyebrow and hacked on command. 

"Right. Captain, this is what I want you to do. Every couple of hours, and before he goes to sleep for the night, I want you to give him a couple of good thumps right here." She eased Ianto forward and struck him with the flat of her hand between the shoulder blades. "Be quite firm about it. You want to shake the congestion out of his lungs. Then repeat it here." She pulled Ianto back upright and struck his chest, setting off a violent coughing fit. 

Ianto flailed with a hand outstretched for the tissue box. Jack handed him a wad and then went for the the stash of water bottles in the lower desk drawer, opened a bottle, and handed it off. "Better?" he asked as Ianto carefully sipped between fits of coughing.

Eventually the attack subsided. Ianto wiped his mouth, blew his nose, and pitched the tissues into the waste paper basket. "Define 'better'," he replied with an arch of his eyebrow. 

Dr Porter ignored the sarcasm. "Eat your soup. The aromatics in it will help ease your congestion. And take one of these every four hours." She extracted a pair of pill bottles from her lab coat pocket. "I see you've got tea and water. That's good. With your fever as high as it is, we don't want you getting dehydrated. You can have another aspirin for the head and body aches, if you haven't taken any recently." Dr Porter rose from the bedside. "I'll be round to check on you again later." She paused in front of the doorway and inclined her head towards Jack. "Captain," she said politely before exiting.

"She's just as straightforward as Owen was, but not half as rude," Ianto remarked as he dipped his chopsticks into the takeaway container. "I think I like her." 

"I'm happy you're happy," Jack replied. He pulled another container out of the takeaway bag and started forking beef in red curry sauce and rice into his mouth. 

"You don't sound happy." Ianto took a cautious sip of broth out of the oversized cup. 

Jack took another bite and chewed a few times before replying. "It's going to be a long night. I'd rather be down here watching old movies with you. Instead, I get to take Gwen and the newbies out on a manhunt." 

"Any breaks in the case?" Ianto asked before delicately plucking a prawn out from its nest of glass noodles. 

Jack nodded. "We now know both our victims had matching shoulder brands. What that means, we're not sure. But it's something."

"Branding," Ianto mused. "Like body art? Or marking like property?"

"Hard to say." Jack pushed rice around his takeaway container, his features thoughtful. "Why'd you say that about marking property?"

Ianto shrugged as he fumbled with his noodles. "Something I was listening to on the radio earlier. As tattooing goes mainstream, some people are looking for more extreme ways to differentiate themselves. Branding was mentioned because it's considered edgy in some quarters. More extreme. They also mentioned it's an accepted practice among various fraternal orders, religious groups, gangs, and those who regard themselves, for whatever reason, as slaves."

They ate in silence. Ianto wrangled noodles, too shaky to really manage the chopsticks, but unwilling to swap for a fork. Jack pushed his curry around the takeaway container, lost in thought. Finally, he dropped the container into the empty takeaway bag and rose to make tea.

"Interesting notion," Jack said as he poured boiling water into the flask and set it within Ianto's easy reach. "Thanks." 

"What for?" Ianto held out the soup container for Jack to take away. 

Jack dipped down and brushed the sweaty fringe from Ianto's forehead. He took the takeaway cup and kissed Ianto's cheek. "Get some rest, I'll come check on you later."

***

"We've got a hit," Gwen announced. "Missing persons record." She tapped keys and enlarged the data record, scanning the information before continuing. "Ninety-seven percent match our male DB is Wesley Wilson, age twenty-five. Missing from York six months ago. He's got form as a youth offender, but seems to have kept his nose clean for the last few years." 

"Well, that's something." Jack studied the face of the young man. "I wonder what he was doing in Wales? And what his connection was to our other victim?"

Gwen frowned at the photograph displayed on the screen. "Jack, Wesley Wilson has a birth record. He has parents and a family."

Jack stuffed his hands into his trousers pockets and shrugged. "Could be a fake. We're not the only ones hacking the national database. Vampires need fake IDs and passports, too. They have long lifespans, remember? They have to change their identities every so often, or they'll stick out."

Gwen frowned at him. "I suppose. They just pick up and leave their lives behind? Have you done that?"

Jack shrugged. "Hasn't everybody to one extent or another, Ms Cooper-Williams?" He gave Gwen a look that suggested that the topic wasn't open for discussion.

Gwen met his eyes for a moment, then turned back to her computer and tapped at the keyboard. She brought up Google and typed in 'Wesley Wilson' and 'York, Britain'. She got no useful hits, and closed the browser again. "Would you mind if I checked into it?"

Jack nodded absently, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. "Get hold of the officer in charge. Verify his background."

Gwen checked the signature on the missing persons report and dialled the York police station. She engaged in a couple of minutes of small talk, eventually got around to the point, and thanked the officer. "Six months ago, he worked a day job, Jack. He couldn't have been a vampire."

"Vampires increase their numbers by recruiting." Jack dropped into the chair at the adjacent workstation and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "He could have met someone and decided to change his lifestyle."

"I suppose." Gwen looked at the time readout on the computer screen. "We've got hours until the night scene gets busy. There doesn't seem to be much we can do until then. So if it's all right with you, I'm going home to see my husband. Then I'll come back and we can check out this club." 

Jack nodded. "Wear something black and tight fitting. It seems to be that kind of place." 

Gwen gathered up her purse and gave Jack a smile. She was on the lift ascending before he could come up with a witty parting shot.

***

He was supposed to be on his way home for a few hours' kip before work started up again, but instead Andy was walking along the waterside with a coffee and a bag of chips, and the other rookie at his elbow. 

"So, some first day, eh?" Andy cracked a crooked smile and leaned against the rail as he watched Cardiff go about its collective business.

Felicity took a sip of her coffee and nodded in agreement. "Some first day."

"Aliens. Vampires. Christ. All this going on under my nose. I feel quite thick. All this time me calling Gwen 'Scully' and I had no bloody idea she really was." 

"Don't take it so hard," Felicity said. "I get the impression that half of our job is keeping the alien presence under wraps." 

"Yeah, but what's the rest of it?" Andy asked around a mouthful of potato. "That's what I want to know. I figured we'd get a little more orientation than 'Here's a gun and a mobile.' And 'Oh, by the way, if you blab, your life isn't worth the stack of paper you keep signing your name to.' Seems to me if you're going to spend your time policing aliens and Rifts and things, there should be some sort of proper introduction."

Felicity shrugged and met Andy's glower with an impish smile. "Where would be the fun in that?" 

"You're daft," Andy grumbled in reply. 

"And you're expecting too much." Felicity turned much more serious as she crumpled her empty chip bag and tossed it at a rubbish bin. "Did you see the state of that place and those people? Undermanned and, from the looks of it, overworked. Jones lives in at least part time. He's got a bed in his office. Cooper has so many photos in the ready room, I'd say she does the same. It's going to be catch as catch can for the foreseeable." Felicity went silent for a few moments and stared out to sea. "I'll make you a deal." 

Andy finished the last of his coffee and crumpled the cup. "Yeah? What's that?"

Felicity stuck out her free hand. "I'll watch out for you. You keep an eye on me. That way, if it gets heavy, you'll know someone's got your back." 

They shook on it. 

"Since we're officially partners, I don't mind asking," Andy said. "Would you give me a lift back to mine? I walked to work this morning."

To be concluded ... 


	3. Chapter 3

***

"I brought grapes." Jack dangled a bunch of plump green grapes so that Ianto could see them, then returned them to the shopping bag and handed it over for Ianto to inspect the rest of the contents. "There's also some juice and those biscuits you like." 

Ianto rifled among Jack’s purchases. "You like, you mean," he wheezed when he saw the fancy biscuit package.

Jack shrugged. "I knew it was one of us. Anyway, there's some pot noodles and instant cereal in case you get hungry while we're out. Oh, and I picked this up in the pharmacy. I thought it might help with your chest." He reclaimed the bag and showed Ianto the pot of herbal rub. "And I got your pjs out of the wash."

"Thanks." Ianto sighed, sniffed his sweatshirt and scowled. "What I'd really like is a shower and a change of bedding." 

Jack knelt at Ianto's side and studied him closely. "How do you feel?"

"Honestly?" Ianto hugged his arms against his chest. "Worse. It's like my body's decreed if a doctor says we're sick then we really must be." He sneezed. "I hurt all over. I'm a sweaty mess. I can't breathe properly." 

Jack patted him gingerly on the shoulder. "I'm sorry." 

Ianto tossed the empty tissue box at the bin. "You're not the one who dove into the bay to save a piece of alien tech." 

"No." Jack got a fresh box out of the cupboard and handed it over. "But I'm the one who should have made sure you got cleaned up and warm sooner than you did. And I should have made you take some time off as soon as you started feeling bad." He perched on the edge of the bed again. "Tell you what. Why don't you get out of those clothes and sit over in the chair for a minute. I'll change the bed and then help you shower, okay?"

Ianto nodded. "Yeah. Okay." He undressed. Jack helped him into his dressing gown before assisting him to the leather armchair next to the electric fire. He covered Ianto with the duvet and tucked it around his shoulders. "Just relax a minute. The spares are still in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet?"

"Yeah," Ianto replied before he was overcome by a sneezing fit.

Jack stripped and remade the bed, patted the pillows back into shape, and turned back the sheet. "Sorry. I don't have any chocolates."

"I'll take that into account when I reckon your tip." Ianto handed back the duvet. "Shower now?" He swayed when he stood and Jack rushed to steady him.

"Are you sure you want to go all the way down the hall? I could give you a sponge bath." Jack waggled his eyebrows. "It might be fun." 

Ianto gripped Jack's shoulder as his knees buckled. "I'm not sure I could survive your idea of fun right now. Please, Jack, just help me down the hallway."

Jack nodded and slipped his arm around Ianto's shoulders. "Come on."

They walked slowly to the bathroom. Ianto had renovated the facility in Jack’s absence, removing two of the four toilets that serviced the corridor, and installing a shower in their place. 

Jack assisted Ianto to one of the remaining toilets, then went back to the archivist's office for the pot of menthol and eucalyptus rub. When he returned to the bathroom, Ianto was standing unsteadily at the sink, cleaning his teeth. 

Jack started the shower, stripped out of his clothing, then uncapped the rub and broke the seal. 

"What are you doing?" Ianto asked as Jack wrapped an arm around him and started to rub the viscous goo into his chest. 

"The hot water will disperse it. The fumes, they'll help." 

Ianto nodded wearily as Jack helped him out of his dressing gown and massaged between his shoulder blades. "Why are you naked?"

Jack removed the supporting hand from Ianto's hip and waited a beat. Ianto's knees began to buckle again and he clutched at the sink to steady himself.

"I'm not risking you passing out in there alone. Now, if you're ready, let's do this." 

Chastened, Ianto accepted Jack's support again as they got into the shower. He bent his head and breathed as deeply of the scented steam as his aching lungs allowed whilst Jack washed his hair and body as if he were a child.

"Give me just a second." Jack ducked under the water and gave himself a cursory once over. "There. We're both clean. Now, let's get you dried and dressed." 

"Fine."

They did the percussive coughing exercise prescribed by Dr Porter. Jack rubbed more vapour rub into Ianto's back and chest, and then helped him into his dressing gown and opened the bathroom door.

"Jack!" Ianto hissed. "Clothes?"

Jack shrugged and snagged a towel off the rack to deal with the water that still clung to his body. "Relax. I sent everyone home for a few hours. There's no one to see. Now stop worrying and let's get you back to bed."

***

"Tonight's trip is a recon job," Jack said as the team settled around the conference table. "We know both our victims were at the club shortly before their deaths. We're going to go in, flash their pictures around, and see if anyone can tell us anything. We've got a name for our male victim. Gwen."

The lights dimmed and a missing person report filled the display screen. The photograph of a good-looking, but not exceptionally handsome, young man with neatly-trimmed dark hair and regular features took up most of the space. The seal of the Yorkshire Constabulary adorned one corner of the lower part of the page, and his vital statistics the rest. "We've confirmed his name was Wesley Wilson. Up until six months ago, he was a human. He went missing from his home in York and his mum is frantic. She made his breakfast, watched him get on his bus for work, and never saw him again."

"He's too old to be running away from home. A kidnap?" Andy frowned.

"We can't rule that out," Jack said. 

"Was there any information about the brand?" Felicity asked.

Gwen thumbed through the information she'd gathered. "When I asked about distinguishing marks, tattoos and piercings and the like, I was told that Wesley was deathly afraid of needles. He certainly wasn't going to let anyone touch him with a branding iron." 

"I thought you said that vampires were just average folk," Andy said grimly.

"I said most of them were all right," Jack replied. "They've got their criminal element, just like most societies." 

Felicity frowned. "Are you suggesting there's some sort of trafficking going on and the brand is an ownership mark? Prostitution or slavery?"

"It might not be anything so dire," Andy said. "It could just be a sign of allegiance to a clan leader." He shrugged. "We see it with gangs often enough."

"We're just speculating until we can learn more." Gwen closed the file folder and pushed it towards the centre of the table. "What we know is we've had two deaths. Both victims were tied up, and the male victim showed signs of torture. That makes the idea these were random acts of violence pretty remote. If there is a vampire gang moving into the area we need to stop it before they can get a foothold." 

"So what's the plan?" Andy sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. 

"Tonight we talk to people. See if anybody recognises either Wesley or his companion. We'll start at the club where they were last seen together and go from there." 

"Any questions?" Jack rose from the table. He wore a black leather bomber jacket over a pair of tight black jeans and a fitted white dress shirt, the better to blend in with the club goers they planned to interview. He pulled a tiny Bluetooth earpiece out of his jacket pocket and held it up so the entire table could see it clearly. "You all have one of these. Use it. As long as it's on and active, we can keep an eye on you, even if you can't see us. Ianto will be doing mission control." 

_"Hello,"_ rasped Ianto over the speaker.

"Jack, do you think that's a good idea?" Gwen protested. "No offence, Ianto, but you should be resting." 

_"None taken."_

Jack shrugged. "Do you want to run the mission?" 

Felicity exchanged a look with Andy. He held her gaze for a second and inclined his head subtly back at her. "Captain, if you don't object, I can stay here with Ianto. He can train me on the system." 

Jack gave her a nod of approval. "Ianto, how's that sound to you?"

_"Brilliant. Glad to have you, Dr Porter."_

Jack clapped his hands together. "Now that's settled, let's go figure this thing out."

***

"Let me see if I've got this all straight." Felicity adjusted her headset so it rode more comfortably against her cheek and then pointed at the computer monitor with a fingertip. Three closely grouped red dots and a blue one blinked on a grid map. "We're monitoring position based on GPS signal from the phones. We can use that to tap into the nearest CCTV link to add visual input and relay that information back to the agents on the ground."

Ianto took a sip of orange juice, cleared his throat against the sting, and nodded. "Correct. Normally the cameras only capture an image every ten seconds. That delay could be costly. If we control a camera, we can make it record in real time and provide a bird's eye view." Ianto got out of bed, pulled the tie of his dressing gown a bit tighter, and looked over Felicity's shoulder. "From the looks of it, Jack is giving his final instructions. They should be ready for a radio check momentarily. Why don't you do a practice hack on the camera feed, just to get a feel for it." He pointed at a stationary green dot. "That one will do."

Felicity turned the monitor towards the bed and adjusted her chair so Ianto could see more easily, then she gave him a pointed look. Ianto pressed his lips together, but didn't argue as he got back into bed and settled a laptop with a mirror display to Felicity's in his lap. She began to tap commands into the system.

"You're in." Ianto checked his own display. "Use the arrow keys and you can reposition the camera up to 90 degrees." 

She nodded without turning, her attention on the keyboard and display in front of her. In the left hand quadrant of both their screens the car park camera began to pan. 

_"All right, we're ready to move out."_

Felicity adjusted the microphone level as Jack's voice boomed into her headset.

"Don't let the valets park my car." Ianto succumbed to a fit of coughing and gestured for Felicity to continue without him.

"Roger that, Captain," Felicity said. "Level check, please."

Gwen and Andy identified themselves in turn.

"Good hunting," Felicity replied, then settled in to wait.

***

"Damn." Andy knocked his fist against the Audi's window as they drove slowly past Club Mystique. He glanced over at Jack who was looking back at him as if he expected an explanation. "I know that bouncer. He's got a pattern."

"What sort of a pattern?" Jack rolled around the corner. He was taking Ianto's warning about valets seriously and looking for an empty spot on the street.

"He just let a bunch of single men and mixed pairs in. For the next hour the only people setting foot in that club are single women and gay couples." 

Jack grinned triumphantly as a car pulled out in front of them. He nabbed the space. "Constable Davidson, are you propositioning me? I'll have you know I'm spoken for." 

_"Very spoken for,"_ Ianto croaked.

"Uh. Right." Andy pulled at his collar. "I'm very happy for you both. But if we want to see what's going on inside, we're going to have to pretend to … you know." 

There was a devilish twinkle in the Captain's eye, and Ianto's voice in their ears again. _"Don't get handsie, Jack."_

"Spoilsport," Jack mock-pouted. "Ruin all my fun." 

"Don't worry, Ianto." Gwen could barely keep the amusement out of her voice and Andy knew they were all winding him up. "I'll keep an eye on Jack for you." 

They got out of the car. Andy crossed to Jack as several of club goers strolled by looking them over appraisingly. Jack held out his hand and Andy took it. They walked arm and arm to queue whilst Gwen watched, trying to suppress her snickering.

***

The club was dark save for the play of multi-coloured baby spotlights that illuminated the dancers undulating to a driving beat. Phoebe watched the action, knowing she, in turn, was being watched. Feeling rebellious, she held her ground and sipped a Coke as she surveyed the patrons from her vantage point near the passageway that lead to the private rooms in the back. 

Phoebe's eyes went wide as two men, one dark haired and one fair, and a woman stepped up to the bar. The woman and the dark-haired man she didn't recognise, but the blond was familiar; she'd seen him when they were both working out on the street. Instead of the sexy leather and denim club clothes, he had worn a uniform. 

They were looking around the club but trying not to be obvious about it. With a furtive nod, the woman moved away. She slipped something from her pocket and approached a couple just off the dance floor. The men whispered, not quite in disagreement, then headed for the opposite side of the club. Phoebe kept her head down, but watched as they began to work the crowd. She edged closer and saw the blond pull a photograph from his jacket and flash it at one of the waitresses.

The waitress glanced at the photo and shook her head. She turned abruptly and used her drinks tray to block an attempt by the man to keep her from her work. 

Phoebe lifted her head and smiled automatically as she felt eyes upon her. She looked around, but couldn't see anyone trying to get her attention. She took a sip of her Coke and came to a decision, but when she tried to will her feet to move, fear glued her to the floor.

***

"You've actually hacked the CCTV inside the club." Felicity watched as her screen configuration changed and the inside of Club Mystique replaced the grid map of Cardiff.

"It's a skill," Ianto said modestly. "One a good friend taught me, and I'm now passing along to you. Not all security systems are designed in such a way that we can get in, but it never hurts to check." 

Felicity moved to sit on the edge of the bed and watch as Ianto demonstrated how he'd hacked the internal security network. "So what will you do now?"

"We have footage from the night of the murders. I'll take captures and compare the faces of tonight's patrons with those from the night Wesley and his companion were there. If there's a match, I'll, or rather you'll, direct one of the team to query that person. It'll save some time." 

"Right." Felicity looked down at the screen and watched for a moment as the people went about the business of recreation. "I don't know whether to be impressed or terrified right now. What you're doing is — "

"I try not to consider the civil liberties aspects too closely." Ianto reached for his mug and drained it before continuing. "There's enough that goes on around here that makes sleep difficult. What we do is expedient and sometimes it saves lives. I console myself with that." 

Ianto erupted into a fit of coughing and Felicity got up to pour him a fresh cup of tea. The computer whirred on, crunching data, as the unsuspecting club goers danced.

***

Phoebe glanced around the club as she tried to nerve herself up. Niko, the club pimp, glowered down from his observation point. She wasn't the only one bearing Juno's mark who worked in the club, but she was the only one not chatting up a potential client. Phoebe nodded her head submissively. With a seductive smile on her face, she approached the blond policeman. She wrapped one hand over his and hauled him out onto the dance floor.

He smiled down on her. His hands strayed to her waist and the thick black leather belt that rode over her hips. Phoebe stretched up on her toes to speak directly in his ear. 

With a final, sultry glance, Phoebe slipped from his embrace and sauntered off, praying the constable would follow.

***

"All right, Andy, I've got you," Felicity said into the comm. 

On the monitor Andy lifted one shoulder in acknowledgement and followed the petite girl with the dark cascade of ringlets out of the club. 

"Jack, Gwen, Andy has made a contact and is heading outside." 

_"Gwen, you stay here,"_ Jack muttered. _"I'll follow."_

Ianto coughed and adjusted his microphone. "Hang back, Jack. Give Andy space to work." Ianto's fingers flew over the keyboard as he tapped the CCTV network outside of the club. "The cameras will track automatically as long as they're getting Andy's signal," he said to Felicity.

Felicity frowned. "They're headed for the alleyway behind the club. We're going to lose our visual." 

Ianto shrugged. "It can't be helped. Hopefully, she's not got a partner with a sap."

***

Andy drew slow, steady breaths. This wasn't the first contact he'd had in a dark, dirty alleyway with an informant, and if he survived the night, it wouldn't be his last. The pistol hung heavy against his side. He'd nearly forgot he was wearing it for a few hours, but now he was acutely conscious that he wasn't completely unprotected as he stepped into the shadows. "Phoebe?"

"I'm here." She held out a delicate, pale hand.

With a nervous swallow, Andy took it. He had noticed her small, sharp canines on the dance floor. Phoebe was a vampire and despite everything he had learned over the course of the day, Andy's head filled with scenes from old films where hapless men were seduced by pretty girls with too much eye make-up — like Phoebe. The men always ended up with their throats torn out.

"Give me twenty quid," Phoebe said. 

Andy nodded. He hoped he'd get reimbursed. His final pay cheque wouldn't hit his account for another two weeks. He dug two ten pound notes out of his pocket and handed them over. 

Phoebe tucked the money into the lacy cup of her bright pink bra and dropped to her knees. She looked up through the thickly mascaraed veil of her eyelashes. Her lips didn't move, but Andy heard her voice, frantic in his head. "We're being watched. Pretend you like what I'm doing." 

Andy resisted the urge to look around and undid his belt and flies. He tried to act as if he were having a good time as Phoebe planted her hand against the top of his thigh.

"They killed my friends Wesley and Dina. If they find out I'm talking, I'll be next. Help me, please."

Andy dropped his chin against his collarbone and muttered, "Felicity, are you getting this?" Then he realised if the voice was in his head, the answer was probably not. He recapped quickly. Phoebe smiled and leaned forward, her breath hot against his bared skin. For several moments, Andy lost track of everything. 

_"Jack, Andy needs retrieval."_ Felicity's voice was calm and assured. It gave him a warm feeling to know that even though his new partner was at the Hub, she was looking out for him. _"Gwen, get out of the club. Grab a taxi and get back to base."_

Tense seconds ticked by. Andy clutched Phoebe's shoulders as she pretended to blow him. He heard the squeal of tires, and finally the profile of the Audi shadowed the mouth of the alley. With one hand on Phoebe, and the other holding his trousers in place, Andy ran for the car. He had barely got Phoebe in, and the the door shut behind them, before they were on the move.

***

Phoebe glanced nervously around the conference table at the concerned faces studying her in return. Andy, who had rescued her, kept giving her small, reassuring smiles. The dark-haired woman, who'd introduced herself as Gwen, was speaking in a fervent whisper to the bloke called Jack. Not that it mattered, Phoebe could understand her perfectly. Jack had said he was in charge when he'd introduced himself in the car, although he wasn't doing much at the moment beyond radiating a sense of outrage.

A blonde woman with kind, hazel eyes entered the room and sat down. She wore a lab coat and seemed quite cool compared to the others. Phoebe studied her for a moment, but picked up no sense of ill will. She dropped her eyes and sipped at a glass of Coke. 

"It's okay, Phoebe," Andy said. "You can trust us." 

She took a deep breath. She hoped so, because there was no going back now that Juno's enforcers were combing the streets looking for her. She gave Andy a fragile smile. "Thank you for helping me." 

"Can you tell us what you're mixed up in, Phoebe?" Gwen leaned forward and nodded encouragingly.

Andy scrawled a note. Gwen's already large eyes widened further as she read it. She collected herself quickly, crumpled the paper into a wad, and resumed her listening pose.

Phoebe pretended she hadn't seen the exchange as she touched the brand, a stylised _J_ , on her shoulder. "She promised me I'd never be cold or hungry or afraid again. Maybe I wouldn't have been if I'd behaved." 

"Who is 'she'?" Gwen persisted. "Who did this to you?" 

Even thinking the name sent a frisson of fear running up her spine, but Phoebe lifted her gaze from the table and met Gwen's eyes. "She called herself Juno. Like the queen of the gods. She's very old and very powerful. The other old ones fear her." 

"Old ones. You mean the vampires?" Gwen asked.

Phoebe nodded. Jack frowned. Andy and the doctor leaned forward, silently encouraging her to continue. "They kidnapped me and Dina from Manchester. Wesley said he came from York. They turned us a little. Just enough to make us dependent on them, showed us what would happen if we disobeyed, and sent … sent us out on the game." 

"I don't understand." Dr Porter frowned. "How could they have turned you 'just a little'?" 

Phoebe closed her eyes, remembering the first time she had woken with the gnawing hunger that only Juno's elixir could satisfy. "Juno said it'd take a long time to make us like them. Until then, we're stuck between the light and the shadows." 

"Is that what she told you?" Gwen ran a hand through her fringe and frowned. "That you weren't human any more, but you weren't a vampire either?" 

"Phoebe, would you mind if I took some blood and performed a couple of simple tests?" Dr Porter asked. "I'm very careful with a needle." 

Over the last months, Phoebe had been branded, beaten, and used roughly by more than one client. A needle prick meant nothing. She nodded. 

"Do you know where they've been keeping you?" Jack spoke at last. 

Phoebe shook her head. "The van they used for transport doesn't have windows." She frowned and said slowly. "But ... they dropped us off and picked us up at the same spots every night." 

"Felicity, get your samples and run your tests." Jack smiled. It was hard and predatory, like that of the jackal Phoebe had seen once on a school trip to the zoo. It turned her blood cold and she shivered. "After that, I want to have a heart to heart with Juno."

***

Felicity bent over the analyser, carefully loading a sample of Phoebe's blood. The machine wasn't of human invention and using it gave her a small thrill. Torchwood, diamond in the rough that it appeared to be, was living up to its advance billing. 

Lights began to blink on the analyser's display. Someone had attached a series of plastic labels translating some of the buttons and readouts. The captain said it only took about ten minutes to work its magic and provide a result once the pink light came on. The indicator illuminated. Felicity looked at her watch and settled in to wait.

She'd never forget that night in the Afghan desert. That was the night a space ship crashed, bringing with it the arrival of UNIT, and one Dr Martha Jones. That night, her life had changed.

Felicity had been been both humbled and fascinated by the notion that Earth was one small part of a greater thriving universe. Martha had given her a knowing smile and in that moment something had clicked between them. They worked side-by-side, chatting amicably all night long, as they cleared up the wreckage and disposed of the bodies. Sadly, there had been no survivors. As dawn broke, and the teams packed up to return to their respective bases, Martha pressed a card into Felicity's palm and said, "Call him." 

With months left on her deployment, Felicity had tucked the card away and nearly forgot about it. But the idea of a universe brimming with life haunted her dreams. At the end of her tour with nothing but the prospect of either re-enlistment or civilian life looming before her, Felicity made the call. Now as she analysed Phoebe's blood sample, seeking to disprove Juno's story of partial conversion, Felicity was positive she'd made the right decision.

Felicity stretched and glanced at her watch again. There was a small kitchenette in the upper tier that contained a fancy espresso machine, a more mundane drip coffee maker, and an electric kettle. She decided a coffee was in order. 

Captain Harkness was in his office. Ianto was sleeping restlessly. Gwen had taken Phoebe to the ready room. Andy was doing something with the number plate of the panel van, trying to back trace its route through the CCTV in case Juno's people decided they needed to pack it in early in response to Phoebe's kidnapping. As the blood analyser slowly stripped Phoebe's DNA apart, taking it down to its base components, Felicity dumped milk and sugar into a cup of strong coffee, and waited for her theory to be confirmed.

***

It was four thirty in the morning. Gwen rubbed grit from her eyes. She pushed her hair out of her face, and tucked it into a rough ponytail. Being confined to the Hub behind a computer while the others staked out the headquarters of Juno's operation was nerve-racking. But someone had to run the mission, and though Felicity had done well in her initial outing as controller, she was needed as a medic in case there were casualties from the rescue. 

_"There's another one."_ Jack's voice sounded flat, all emotion suppressed.

"That's the fifth one." Gwen turned to Phoebe. "That's all of them, isn't it?"

Phoebe nodded. "Three of us at each club or party, and one or two of Juno's goons to keep us in line. They'll hand out rewards and punishments now. It won't go easy for the rest of the half-turned from Club Mystic tonight." 

Gwen frowned. "Why?" Phoebe wouldn't meet her eyes. "Why, Phoebe?" she repeated. 

"Because we're responsible for watching each other. I escaped. Belle and Duncan will pay for it."

"That's horrible!" Gwen keyed her mic. "Jack, Phoebe says they're going to punish the other … workers ... in her group." 

_"I'm sorry to hear that."_

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Gwen glanced at the computer clock. There was at least a half an hour before they were supposed to move in.

_"We'll make it right. Later."_

The minutes crawled by. Gwen got Phoebe another Coke. The girl seemed to consume nothing but sugary drinks, one after another. Felicity had speculated it was a side effect of the still unidentified agent she had isolated from Phoebe's blood. Gwen patted Phoebe's shoulder and smiled. "It won't be long now." 

_"We're moving in."_

Gwen watched as three little dots moved away from the cover of the Range Rover. She typed a series of commands and killed the security system that protected the house and surrounding grounds. "You're cleared to go. Good luck!"

***

Jack hated this part of an operation, the last few seconds before the hammer dropped and all the dozens of ways a mission could fall apart crowded his brain. He shut his eyes, willing the doubts away, and took a deep breath."Go!"

Felicity and Andy darted off to cover the back. Jack initiated the pre-fire sequence on the flame-thrower, then ran across the wide expanse of lawn, coming to shelter under a yew tree. There were voices in his ear confirming positions as he counted down. "Move in!" he ordered before turning the door handle and slipping inside. 

A tough looking vampire pulled a gun. Jack burned him to the ground where he stood and ran deeper into the house. He thanked the heavy, ornate doors that shielded his arrival — and the cries of the burning vampire — from the rest of the house.

In the elegantly appointed lounge a dozen boys and girls, most of them still decked out in club clothes, knelt on the hardwood. Two suited men flanked a voluptuous woman clad in a long black dress heavily embroidered with silver thread. She was beautiful, or at least she would have been if her eyes hadn’t been so cold and hard. She held a silver cup out to a handsome bare-chested blond in tight leather jeans. He was reaching upward in supplication, although his eyes were downcast. His entire pose was one of submission. 

"Juno, I presume?" Jack said.

A trio of vampire thugs appeared from a side room and pulled guns. Juno's bodyguards stepped in front of her, but she waved them away with an imperious gesture of her heavily bejewelled fingers.

There were sounds of a scuffle coming from another part of the house and the report of gunfire. Somebody screamed. 

The captives panicked. Some dropped the rest of the way to the floor and covered their heads. Some seemed on the verge of stampeding.

"Enough!" Juno pushed aside her guards and stepped over the prone slaves at her feet. 

Jack agreed. The vampire with the best line of sight seemed to have an itchy trigger finger. Jack flamed him where he stood to make his point and dove behind a chair in case his pals decided to return fire as Andy and Felicity burst into the room.

Felicity levelled her pistol at Juno's head. Andy jerked the nearest of the slaves to her feet as he covered the bodyguards. "Come on, get out of here!" 

The girl stared at him for a long moment and then ran to protect Juno. The rest clambered to their feet and encircled their mistress, forming a shield.

Juno laughed. "They're mine. In mind and body." 

"Captain." There was a warning note in Felicity's voice.

Jack spared her a glance and saw the aim of her pistol, and Andy's, had shifted from Juno to himself. Damn, Juno was powerful. He wasn't close enough to shield either of his people, even if he was in practice. Which he wasn't. If they survived the night, he'd run everyone through the introductory psi course, including himself.

Juno was trying her mojo on him, trying to scratch around in his brain. Jack upped his mental shields, rebuffing her attack. Her eyes narrowed and her elegant lips thinned. 

It was time to do what he could to upset the apple cart. 

Jack straightened to his full height and trained his flame-thrower on the other pair of guards. "Will they be so loyal when they find out you've been lying to them?" he snarled. 

"I don't know what you mean." Juno’s accent was heavy and hard to place. 

"Once bitten. Once turned." Jack ignored Juno and concentrated his attention on the slaves. "It only takes one blood transfer to mutate a human into a vampire. One! You duped these people. Seduced them, then made them your slaves. You've subverted the sacred pact." 

"What do you know of vampire ways, human?" 

"More than you think." Jack became deceptively casual. "Ethan wants to have a word." 

"Ethan." Juno swayed on her feet as she momentarily lost her composure. She straightened her spine and tried to regain her previous haughty facade, but Jack knew he'd struck a blow.

"What do you know of Ethan?" Juno looked down her nose and tried to sound dismissive, but she couldn’t quite pull it off.

Felicity and Andy both blinked, then re-aimed their weapons at Juno and her bodyguards as they slipped the vampire madam's psychic net.

Jack grinned coldly. "Oh, we go way back. Remember that little dust up in '05? You know, the one in Paris?" 

Juno lost another several degrees of composure. "Impossible! You’re much too — "

Jack cut her off. "Brunet? I never did understand Ethan’s preoccupation with fair hair, but we all have our little kinks. Yours seem to involve manipulating those that are vulnerable. Am I right?"

He smiled again, somewhat wistfully. "Anyway. Ethan and me, we became very good friends that night. Very. Good. Friends. We’ve kept in touch. He’s such a great guy, really fun to be around. Except for when he loses his temper. You know about his temper, don't you, Juno?" Jack said in a light, nearly off-hand tone.

Juno’s elegant fingers strayed to her throat. She took a step backwards.

"When I filled him in on what was going on around here, he sounded downright peeved." 

Jack felt, rather than saw, motion a split second before the vampire thugs were on him. He bobbed and weaved, used the flame-thrower to crack the skull of one of the bodyguards, and then sent it solidly into the solar plexus of the other. Both went down and he flamed them.

"Anyone else want to get toasty?" Jack snarled. "Felicity, what did Phoebe's blood analysis show?"

Felicity spoke in a calm, clipped tone. Jack could see fire in her eyes, but she otherwise kept her temper reined in tight. "Phoebe isn't a half anything. She's been given a chemical agent to diminish her powers and make her dependent. But she's just as much a vampire as Juno." 

Felicity pushed through the crowd of protectors and took the chalice away from Juno. From the pack she wore around her waist, she removed a tool that looked a little like an oversized digital thermometer. "I'm sending a sample of the probable agent through for chemical analysis now." 

The slaves looked at one another uncertainly, but held their positions as Felicity plunged the probe into the liquid.

"So what was your come on, Juno?" Jack made eye contact with a timid looking young man and winked. "Did you promise a bunch of working class kids a taste of the high life? Seduced them, then threatened to take it all away if they didn't dance to your tune?"

The slaves shuffled even more restlessly. Whatever mental control Juno had was slipping. "Sun's gonna be up soon. Shall we leave now and go have that chat with Ethan? Or do you want to go watch the sunrise with me?" Jack extended his hands in invitation. "Your choice." 

"Does it matter?" Juno gave Jack a bitter smile. "I've broken our codes for my own pleasure. I'm dead either way, aren't I?" She pushed her way through the slaves. "I've missed the sun." 

In the space of a heartbeat Juno crossed the room. Her loyal bodyguards struggled to follow, but their progress was impeded by the confusion of the newly turned coming back to themselves. Juno pushed away the heavy curtain that covered the French windows and opened them wide. She turned and inclined her head at Jack. "Give Ethan my regards." She bolted out through the window and into the grey, waking dawn of a new day.

Jack slammed the windows closed behind her. His face was grim as he yanked a pair of cuffs from his belt and jerked the arm of the nearest of the remaining bodyguards behind his back and restrained him.

"Now what?" Andy asked. He’d followed Jack’s lead and none too gently cuffed Juno’s other still-standing enforcer and then shoved him onto the sofa.

"Cleanup." Jack pushed his prisoner down next to his buddy. There didn't seem to be much fight left in any of Juno's remaining people. Sunrise was sapping whatever resistance they might have left.

"Who is Ethan?" Felicity asked. "And why did dropping his name spook Juno the way it did?"

"For hundreds of years, vampires have been the stuff of legends," Jack said as he bent to help one of the former slaves to her feet. He gave her a gentle nudge towards Andy, who took her arm and led her out of the room. Most of the other young vampires had already shuffled into a corridor leading to the rear of the house and presumably their beds.

"Ethan is one of the people whose job it is to keep it that way." Jack glanced around the room now empty of all but Felicity and the handcuffed bodyguards. His expression was hard. "What Juno was doing, exploiting those kids, let’s just say that it wouldn't make Ethan happy. And Ethan really does have one hell of a temper."

 _"Felicity, I've got your test results."_ Gwen read a list of chemicals over their comms. Jack watched as their medic's expression transitioned from thoughtful, to grim, to angry. 

"Thanks, Gwen." Felicity walked out of the room. Somewhere in the house was a drugs cabinet. Jack had no doubt the contents would provide his new doctor many interesting research hours.

***

Jack stood in the doorway of the archivist's office watching the uneasy rise and fall of Ianto's chest. He'd pushed the bedding away. There was no sign his fever had abated. 

There were several bottles of water sitting on the desk. Jack uncapped one and sank into the armchair. He took a long draught, emptying nearly half the bottle, recapped it, and leaned back with his eyes closed. 

"Come to bed." 

Jack opened his eyes. Ianto was struggling to sit up. He looked like hell, but the concern in his face was all for Jack. 

He gave Ianto a weary smile. "Hey, Tiger."

"Hey." Ianto patted the mattress at his side.

Jack shook his head. "In a little bit. I've still got a couple of things to take care of upstairs. I just wanted to see you for a minute." 

"Did you shut down the vampire madam?" Ianto started coughing. He reached for his water bottle and tissues. 

Jack got up to help him. He slipped one arm around Ianto's shoulders, offering support as he thumped Ianto's back and chest. "Yeah. You know, in a way, it was the ideal case for Felicity and Andy to cut their teeth on." 

"Played to their strengths," Ianto wheezed. "What's going to happen to the vampires you freed?" 

Jack eased Ianto against his pillows and pulled the blankets back into position to keep him from getting chilled. "An old friend of mine is coming to town tonight."

A shadow played over Ianto's features, but he said nothing. 

"Relax. Yes, he was a boyfriend, about a hundred years ago. But I promise, he's nothing like John." 

"Did I say anything?" Ianto pulled the blankets closer to his chest. 

"You didn't have to." Jack touched Ianto's temple gently. "I can read you. Even when you're trying not to be read. Ethan is a good guy, and he'll make sure these kids get the education Juno didn't give them. After that, it's up to them."

He picked up Ianto's pill bottles, checked the labels, and tapped out tablets into his palm. "Here." Ianto accepted the pills. Their fingers curled together and their eyes locked for a long moment. "I've got to do boss stuff. Be back in a little while. I'll tell you all about my mad adventure in Paris."

***

Andy sat on the lip of the millennium fountain looking up at the bright morning sun. A lot had changed in twenty four hours. He'd learned the world was a very different place than he'd ever imagined. He had a new job. Though in a way, he was still a cop. Alien outreach didn't seem a great deal different from the community policing a constable engaged in. He'd even made a new friend. 

Felicity appeared from out of nowhere as she stepped clear of the invisible lift. Andy felt his mouth curl into a smile. He rose wearily and extended a cup of coffee and a paper sack. "Since you're driving, I bought." 

They walked in silence to the little car park, sipping at their coffee as they tried to frame their thoughts into terms that made sense. "Some first day," Felicity said as she unlocked the door to a sleek silver Saab. 

Andy nodded. "Some first day. Suppose the second will be half as exciting?"

Felicity shrugged. "Only one way I know to find out."

***

Gwen walked quietly into the main body of the Hub. She had checked on their guest and Phoebe was sleeping heavily. Apparently, that was something else the books got right. Vampires really didn't do awake in the daytime well at all. 

The case wasn't entirely closed. It wouldn't be until Jack's friend came and took the fledgling vampires away. Giving them over into some new senior vampire's care didn't fill her with warm fuzzies, but Jack had vouched for Ethan, and Gwen supposed that was the best assurance they could have.

Jack was in his office, one ear pressed to the old fashioned telephone receiver. Gwen wondered who he was speaking to so early in the morning, because the call didn't seem to be strictly business. Jack had a wide, warm smile on his face and appeared to be laughing heartily as she approached and knocked on the door. 

He waved her in as he hung up the phone. "Why are you still here?" 

Gwen shrugged as she circled around the desk, cleared away a stack of paperwork, and perched next to Jack. "I suppose, I wanted to see how you were doing. All these new people around, it changes things, doesn't it?"

"Two is hardly 'all', Gwen." Jack almost sounded if he were gently chiding. "But they are just the beginning. That phone call? He's our new science guru. Or at least he will be when he gets back from Japan." 

"Oh?"

Jack nodded. He shuffled through the files on his desk, found a small stack of folders, and handed them over. "I've approved these potential recruits for activation. This week, I want you to chat them up and offer them a place here at Torchwood."

"Jack!" Gwen couldn't believe her ears. "Are you feeling all right?" 

He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. "You know what, Gwen? For the first time in a long time, I am. We’ve had bad things happen to us. We’ve lost good people we love and that really hurt. Their ghosts will always be with us, as they should be." He waved in a vague way towards the ceiling. “Out there, they lost people too, but Cardiff didn’t wallow. They started rebuilding practically the next day, picking themselves up out of the rubble. They’re doing themselves proud."

"I know, Jack. But Torchwood — "

"We’ve been wallowing in our grief, Gwen. Torchwood has a job to do. And we can’t do it properly if we’re hanging onto the past. We’re in danger of dishonouring the memories of Owen and Toshiko, and all the good people who came before them. Are you willing to do that?"

Gwen hadn’t quite seen it in those terms. She'd thought by carrying on as they had they’d been protecting the memory of their little team. "Of course not."

"Then don’t fight me on this." Jack held out his hand to her, his eyes soft and imploring. "Help me make them proud."

Gwen clasped Jack’s larger hand in hers and smiled back at him. Maybe it would be good to hear the sound of other voices echoing off the tiles again. The three of them had done incredible work in the last few months, but cracking the vampire case had been a reminder that they could do so much more with a team of experienced specialists contributing their skills. A thriving, healthy Torchwood would be a force to be reckoned with. 

Earlier, Gwen had decided she would try to make Andy and Felicity welcome because that’s what Jack wanted. Now, she realised, it was what she wanted too. The ghosts of Owen and Toshiko would always be with them, reminders of what had been, but they were the past and it was time to look to the future. "I will." 

Jack stretched and yawned, but Gwen felt strangely energised. She gave his hand a final squeeze and pushed off the desk. "I’ll see you later."

Gwen’s mood was sunny as she activated the invisible lift. On the surface, the day was bright and filled with possibilities. Across the Plass she saw Constable Dev Agi, one of her field agents in training. Gwen decided there was no time like the present. Her step was light as she hurried to catch up and offered to buy coffee.

It was time to share Jack’s vision of a new Torchwood.

End


End file.
